I’ve Loved Music From 5-Year-Old Me Singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
To the senior-citizen version of that little boy singing Garth Brooks “The Dance” for a charity fundraiser
Singing is in my blood.
It will be until the day I die.
I’m blessed.
How I wish my parents had the foresight to record 5-year-old Arty singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in my grandma and grandpa’s living room back in 1957.
If they had done so and passed the recording onto me, I would have included it as a link in this article.
Unfortunately, they did not.
Fortunately, six and a half decades later, the highlights of that experience have stuck with me.
That’s how special that day was. Here is my recollection.
Picture This
There I am, all of 5 years old, shyly standing off to the side in my grandma and grandpa’s living room, dying to grab center stage.
My mommy, daddy, and grandparents are yacking away, talking about whatever grownups talk about that little kids have zero interest in, oblivious to my presence.
My self-dialog is going something like this:
I gotta sing, I gotta sing, will they ever stop talking?
It reaches the point where I can’t bear waiting any longer, so I take a few tentative steps towards the grownups and in my sweet little Arty voice sing:
Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are
Up above the clouds so high, like a diamond in the sky
There I was, in all of my glory — four pairs of eyes so keenly focused on my singing that it was as if I was auditioning for American Idol and my parents and grandparents were the four judges. It gets even better — I got a unanimous standing ovation and was voted into the next round.
It was absolute heaven — that perfect combination of singing and recognition.
I was hooked.
